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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

I'm so excited to share that I have written a guest blog for 52 Weeks Blog!
52 Weeks Blog is a great DIY/crafting blog that features a new project
every week. I go there regularly for inspiration, and I am so thrilled
to have been given the chance to write a tutorial for them! The project I
shared uses plain ceramic kitchen tiles and alcohol ink to make pretty
little coasters.

The
West Elm Pouf's have been all over the internet, and I can't help but
to have been sucked into the hype. I love them. They're so cute, and so
pretty. And SO expensive.

Right.

Maybe
it's because I spent the first half of my summer teaching math, or
maybe it was a desperation to have a pouf of my own, but I look at those
and I think, that's nothing more than a cube. Like, it's really just
one of those seventh grade, net style cubes that I just spent 3 weeks
teaching to a group of 13 year olds.

I
decided to try making my own pouf. I will say right now, it was so much
easier and quicker than I could even have imagined. I'd say under 1.5
hours to do this entire project.

Supplies required:

-A pretty, sturdy upholstery fabric (about 1m)

-Some cardboard to make a template

-Sharpies, or something you can safely use to mark up your fabric

-Stuffing (I just tore apart old pillows that have been in our basement for years)

I
began by dividing my cardboard into two pieces - one that is 40cm by
40cm, and one that is 20cm by 40cm. These are the two pattern pieces I
need to make this pouf.

Now
you will build your pattern piece, moving your pattern pieces along
your piece of fabric, tracing as you go (I used Sharpie but be careful
depending on your choice of fabric). You will build your pattern to look
like this:

Once
you have finished tracing, you can cut out your pattern piece in ONE
big piece. Following this, you are ready to begin sewing! I've made a
sewing guide to make it even easier:

Start
by sewing the first part of the box. Holding the right sides together,
start by sewing the green line to the green line, as seen in the picture
above. Continue by sewing the orange to the orange, yellow to the
yellow, and red to red.

When you're done, you’ll have a half box
finished.

One note I will
add - I wanted to make a fancy edge on my pillow. I've never added an
edge to a pillow before, so I was really just guessing as I went. If you
want to add an edge, do it before you sew down the top part of your
pillow. I added a photo below of how I made a corresponding edge so that
it blended well with my pouf-to-be!

The next thing you are going to do is sew your top to your bottom. Following the
sewing map, sew dark blue to dark blue, then pink to pink. Lastly, you will sew
sky blue to sky blue, leaving the spot open so that you can flip your pouf
right side in. The reason I left it in the center like that is because that
way, you can easily flip it around to the back. Really though, you can leave
the opening anywhere you want.

By this point, you should have an insideout pouf!

Then using the little hole you left, flip it rightside in.

And
now for the fun part - stuff your pouf with stuffing!! Instead of
purchasing stuffing from a craft store, which I find really expensive, I
usually try to find old pillows (we always seem to have some lying
around), cut them apart, and reuse their stuffing.

Once it's stuffed, hand sew your pouf closed.

Once you are finished with those seams, you are finished! Sit back and enjoy your $5 pouf.

Monday, August 6, 2012

I
found a dresser that I loved at an estate sale, for $15. It required
quite a bit of work, including repairing two big gashes at the top. I
fell hard though, and figured I could handle it.

From
the start, this dresser was trouble. To get it home, I had to cram it
into my Golf. I didn't remember until after I paid for it that our trunk
hasn't been opening, so it had to be wedged into the backseat.

As
much work as it was to cram into the car, it was a million times harder
to get it out. We had to take out the knobs to roll down the windows,
and broke a chunk off the bottom of the dresser on its way out.

But I was eager. I was ready to go.

After
removing the hardware, the first thing I did was buy a roll of veneer
(ugh...$25!) to redo the top of the dresser. I used contact cement to
attach it, giving myself a terrible headache for the night, but I was
okay with that, because I loved my dresser.

It
looked good at first, but after a few hours, I noticed that the veneer
was buckling. By the next day, I noticed that there were huge air
bubbles everywhere. No amount of rolling and pushing and working at it
could get it to go away. Finally, I realized that I would have to remove
the veneer. I figured I could remove the veneer off the top of the
dresser, but leave it on the curve, where it wasn't actually buckling.
This was also the only part that actually needed to be repaired to begin
with. I really should have only worried about that part from the start.

Removing
the veneer was the worst. I swear, the contact cement fumes come back
tenfold when they're being plucked apart with a spackle knife. The whole
top of the dresser had been destroyed from the contact cement. To fix
it, it required an entire night of sanding and refinishing the top part
using wood filler. By the end, though, it looked fine. Once the top was
feathered into the remaining veneer using the wood filler, I was pretty
sure I was good to go!

The next day, I began priming
it. I used a stain blocking primer by CIL, so that I wouldn't have to
stain the entire dresser. I have read about these stain blocking
primers, and I have to say, I was super happy with the results. It made
that part of refinishing the dresser much easier!

The
primer looked beautiful! Except as it was drying, I noticed
something... worrisome. The remaining piece of veneer was starting to
bubble up again.

It wasn't TOO bad, and I figured that once it was painted, it would barely be noticeable.

I used the color Tempest by Matha Stewart. I was looking for
a color that had a nice, antique, powdered blue kind of feeling, and I am
really happy with it. Here you can see it against the white stain, to get a
feel for how different it is.

But as the paint was drying, I noticed that the veneer was bubbling so, so badly. UGH.

Horrible.
The only thing to do was just rip the entire piece off. So even though
it was already sanded, feathered, primed, and painted, the remainder of
that darn veneer piece had to come off.

If
you're keeping track, this is the entire $25 piece of veneer that has
been ripped apart and trashed. I was just so frustrated. The worst part
is that by now, I still hadn't fixed the initial problem with the
dresser, which was those two gashes missing from the sides. I ended up
filling them in with wood filler, which is absolutely what I should have
done from the beginning. I also hard to redo the whole curved part of
the dresser with wood filler, the same way I had redone the top. I
didn't even take pictures of this part, because by now, I was so over
this dresser.

Once the curve was refinished with the
wood filler, I was finally good to re-prime and repaint the top of the
dresser. The curve isn't perfect. I didn't sand it as well as I could
have, and I didn't take my time as much as I had been. All I cared
about, though, was that it was done.

The last little
detail I had to do was refinish the hardware using brass finisher. I
just love these handles, and I was so happy with how nicely they cleaned
up.

So after ALL of that, I can finally present to you... the finished dresser!

I
am so, so happy with how it turned out. But if I can offer anyone any
advice - stay away from veneer unless you really know what you're doing!